If the Duke Demands Page 16

  “He’s handsome,” she forced out, hoping he couldn’t hear the nervous trembling that crept into her voice or sense the confusion still simmering inside her.

  “Hmm.” His hand on her hip drifted upward along the side of her body, lightly tracing across her ribs. She trembled achingly when his fingers grazed the side swell of her breast, and she instinctively arched her back into his chest. “We’re brothers. We look alike.”

  Oh, that was definitely jealousy! But her kiss-fogged brain couldn’t sort through the confusion he sent swirling inside her to discern why he’d be jealous of Robert. Especially when his teeth nipped gently at her bare shoulder and his hand caressed once more along the side of her breast.

  “Not so much alike,” she countered, although she’d always thought Sebastian would be more handsome if he wasn’t always so serious and brooding, with that perpetual frown of disapproval hanging over his brow. If he did more spontaneous and unexpected things…like licking a woman on her nape at an opera. Oh my. She shivered at the audacity of his mouth and at the heat it sent slithering down her spine.

  “Very nearly identical,” he mumbled, his mouth returning to her shoulder as his hand roamed up to trace his fingers along the neckline of her gown. Completely unexpected yet wantonly thrilling, the caress sent her heart somersaulting just inches from his fingertips.

  “He’s exciting…a risk-taker…” Her voice was a breathless hum despite knowing that in his rivalry with his brother he didn’t want to touch her as much as he wanted to touch her before Robert did. At that moment, though, with his fingertips lightly brushing over the top swells of her breasts, she simply didn’t care. At least not enough to make him stop. “He’s thrilling.”

  He slipped his fingers into the valley between her breasts. When his fingertips traced slow circles against the inner curves of her breasts, she was powerless against the soft whimper that fell from her lips.

  “Lots of men are thrilling.” He smiled wickedly against her neck at the reaction his seeking fingers elicited from her. “I’m thrilling.”

  “You?” She gave a throaty laugh of surprise. “Sebastian, you’re the most reserved, restrained man I—”

  In one fluid motion, he turned her in his arms and pushed her back against the set wall, his mouth swooping down to capture hers and swallow her words as he kissed her into silence. Her hands clenched into the hard muscles of his shoulders as his body pressed against hers, and she stiffened beneath the startling onslaught of his lips, of his hips pushing into hers, all of him demanding possession of the kiss. And of her.

  Aching heat flashed through her, shooting out through the tips of her fingers and toes. With a moan of need, she melted into the embrace. Her hands no longer clenched at him to hold him away but to pull him closer.

  Stroking up and down her sides to encourage her to eagerly return the kiss, he mumbled something against her lips she couldn’t quite make out…

  “Open,” he cajoled against her kiss. “Open for me.”

  Then he pulled back. A soft whimper of protest fell from her at the loss of him, until she felt his thumb caress over her chin, pull down with a gentle tug, and part her lips.

  His mouth returned to hers, and this time when he kissed her, his tongue slipped gently between her parted lips to plunder the moist depths of her mouth and coax her into returning the new intimacy between them. One that left her trembling, hot, and bewilderingly wanting more.

  Tentatively, she touched the tip of her tongue to his, and he groaned in response. Her pulse raced at the masculine sound. He liked it…Good heavens, he liked what she was doing to him! Seized by a wanton urge brought on by the scandalous way they were behaving and by the electric pulse of the opera unfolding next to them, she boldly caressed her tongue over his as she slid her hands across his broad shoulders to run her fingers through the silky hair at his nape.

  Her body shivered and flamed in turns, craving his kiss and his touch even as she knew she should run away. This was Sebastian. The duke. The man who had never paid her any mind before this season except to chastise her for causing trouble. An old friend she’d known practically all her life. She shouldn’t be feeling these kinds of sensations with him, these kinds of wicked pleasures…and oh, such pleasures! When his hand swept up to cup her breast, his fingers teasing at her nipple through her dress, she stopped thinking and simply let herself feel.

  “Sebastian,” she whispered as the aria’s high notes vibrated into her. She arched her back to bring his hand tighter against her and increase the devilish pressure on that aching, hard point he squeezed between his thumb and forefinger.

  “I told you that you stirred my blood, Miranda,” he murmured heatedly as his lips once more found hers, this time to alternate between nipping sharply at her bottom lip with his teeth and soothingly stroking over it with his tongue. “Did you think I was lying?”

  “Yes,” she whispered honestly.

  He laughed, and the deep sound tickled at her lips. “There’s something about you that draws me…the way you pulse full of life, the way you make me laugh—”

  “The way I keep letting you kiss me,” she said with a stab of self-recrimination.

  He grinned appreciatively at her. “That, too.” He kissed her again, long and deep and possessive, to demonstrate to her exactly how much he liked it. “You are very inspiring, Rose, in every way.”

  She shivered at the loss of his heat as his hand left her breast and wandered down her body. “Am I?”

  “Surprisingly so.” His hand caressed languid circles across her belly, with each turn stroking achingly lower. “So much so”—he moved his mouth away from hers to kiss along her jaw and back to that sensitive spot just behind her ear that made her tremble—“that if we had a box all to ourselves”—his hand slid down her belly, as if seeking out the heat aching at her core—“I would be sorely tempted to show you exactly how much.”

  She moaned at his wicked words. The heat of his hand soaked through the thin velvet of her gown as if it wasn’t there at all and seeped into her lower belly, blossoming the ache between her thighs just beyond the ends of his fingertips. Her existence became nothing more than his hard, strong body holding her against the wall, the masculine scents of brandy and tobacco filling her senses with each breath of him she inhaled, and the heat of his fingers caressing tender tracings of silent promises against her belly.

  She buried her face helplessly against his shoulder as she trembled, all the blood inside her seeming to pool and pulse right there between her legs. Right where she ached for his hand to touch, to caress just a few inches lower—

  “Rose,” he whispered huskily, his body now shaking as hard as hers. His lips teased into a smile against her temple as he alluded to her words from their earlier conversation, “Let yourself be tempted…Tell me what you want from me.”

  “I—I don’t…” Fresh confusion swirled through her, mixing with the sweet arousal he flamed inside her. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you want me to kiss you?”

  “Yes,” she sighed out. Oh, very much.

  His mouth captured hers again in an intense kiss that so thoroughly plundered her mouth that her toes curled inside her slippers. She clung to him, breathless and weak-kneed.

  He murmured against her lips. “Do you want me to touch you?”

  “Oh yes,” she answered in a breathy whisper that turned into a moan when he did just that, when his hand slid lower and pressed into the valley between her legs as she’d longed for him to do.

  He cupped her through her skirt, but the velvet might not have been there at all given the heat that seeped into her. For a moment, neither of them moved, and there was only the sound of their breathing and the rush of blood through her ears with each pounding beat of her heart. Then he gently rubbed against her, slowly increasing the pressure until he ground the heel of his hand hard against her. A wonderful and wicked shudder swept through her, and she gave over to the urge to step her legs apart, to give him gr
eater access to that aching place between her thighs. A pleased growl sounded from the back of his throat.

  “Tell me what else you want, Rose, how else I can please you.” Not ceasing in his caresses, which were somehow both a torment and a pleasure, he trailed his mouth back to her ear and whispered hotly, “Do you want…something else?”

  The words crashed over her with the final notes of the aria, and she snapped out of the fogged reverie he had cast over her.

  Something else…She knew exactly what he meant, what temptation he was dangling in front of her now. Just as she knew that tonight he’d been caught up in the passion of the opera and his jealousy, that he wasn’t thinking as a duke who had set himself on finding the perfect duchess but as a man who wanted to flee himself, if only for the evening. The irony was biting. Unlike Robert, Sebastian now saw her as a physically desirable woman rather than as the pesky girl in braids who had grown up next door. But he still wasn’t seeing her.

  What he saw when he gazed at her was escape.

  Applause filled the opera house and reverberated inside her. She stepped back from the circle of his arms as disappointment swept over her. “No, I don’t want that.”

  He stared down at her, his expression a mix of heady arousal and utter bewilderment, as if he simply couldn’t fathom her. An expression that ripped through her chest.

  The softness of his voice couldn’t hide the bitterness lacing through his words as he latched on to the only explanation he could find. “Because of Robert?”

  “No,” she breathed, and his handsome face blurred behind the hot tears welling in her eyes. “Because of you.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Two More Frustrating (and Utterly Confusing) Days Later

  Miranda leaned over the railing and laughed joyfully at the jugglers performing on the alley in front of their box at Vauxhall Gardens.

  “Don’t you dare ask if you can learn to juggle,” Sebastian warned in that same grumpy voice he’d used with her all evening. For the past two days, in fact. Since he kissed her backstage at the opera and she rejected him, apparently wounding his male pride.

  And tonight was proving no different.

  She gave an insulted sniff, irritated at him herself for kissing her so wonderfully when he knew nothing could come of it. Kissing? Oh, the aggravating devil had dared to do so much more! “I would never ask such a thing.” Then, because she couldn’t help tormenting him the way he’d tormented her for the past two days, she added, “But knife throwing! Now there’s a skill I’d lov—”

  He shot her a murderous glare that silenced her in mid-word.

  She swallowed, thinking better of finishing that sentence after all.

  The man was incomprehensible. At one moment warning her not to do anything that would cause a scandal, and at the next kissing her in such a way as to ruin her reputation if anyone caught them. At one moment, treating her as if she were a child, then touching her until she moaned with the passion of a woman. First agreeing to help her with Robert, then behaving as if he were jealous. Jealous? Ha! Not when he had the lovely Lady Jane at his side tonight as his personal guest. Yet instead of paying attention to Jane and engaging her in the same rakish conversation he’d held with Miranda at the opera, he’d spent his evening grumping and growling over every move she made.

  Good heavens. The conundrum that was Sebastian Carlisle could drive a woman mad.

  With a heavy sigh, she rose from her chair. He grabbed her arm, stopping her. “Where are you going?” he demanded.

  She arched a brow, daring him to challenge her, here amid all their family and friends. “I want a glass of punch.”

  He released her arm. “Do not leave this box.”

  “Your talents are being wasted as a duke.” As she slid past him, she lowered her head as close as possible to his ear without drawing attention. “You should have been a gaoler.”

  He turned in his chair as if to make a second attempt to stop her, but she was already gone, slipping around the dining table where they’d taken supper as guests of the Earl of St James.

  The countess had sent invitations to Audley House and Park Place for all of them to join the couple in a private box at Vauxhall for the season opening of the pleasure gardens. So the entire Carlisle family and their guests—minus Josie and Chesney, who preferred to enjoy a quiet evening at home—had piled into several carriages and made their way through the city and across the Thames to the gardens.

  Oh, the place was simply magical! The gardens were awash in colored lanterns, cascading fountains, and illuminated transparencies and filled with people wearing all manner of costumes and dress. Performers paraded down the alley at the heart of the gardens, while acrobats performed on ropes and wires strung between the galleries where private supper parties were held by those lucky enough to rent boxes. Farther away, Chinese lanterns lit the way to the pagoda at the park’s center where a band was finishing its concert. Behind the pagoda lay a dark maze of narrow, winding paths through the trees where Sebastian forbade her to go the moment they’d arrived at the entrance gate.

  Despite Sebastian’s grumpiness, Miranda was enjoying herself. In fact, she’d hoped to convince Quinn to take her up in the hot-air balloon, but he was having too much fun with his friends from Boodle’s and wouldn’t be pulled away. And then there was Robert, who sat in the back of the box and had no time for anyone but Diana Morgan, who sat next to him.

  Tonight, Miranda wasn’t happy with any of the Carlisle men.

  She smiled gratefully at the box attendant as the man handed her a glass of arrack punch from the tray, then grudgingly returned to her seat beside Sebastian. With all of them crowded into the box, the chair beside his was the only one available, unless she wanted to remain standing beside the attendant. Which was a surprisingly tempting idea.

  Especially when Sebastian warned, “And don’t even think about tightrope walking.”

  Men. She was beginning to think they were of no worth whatsoever except for reaching for items high on tall shelves and changing carriage wheels.

  “If you must insist on being in a foul mood all evening,” she countered, reaching the limit of her patience, “then I wish you would find someone else to torment. I am not deserving of it.”

  When she was answered only by his silence, she glanced sideways and caught him staring at her, an inscrutable expression on his face. His dark eyes studied her closely, contemplating her long enough that she fidgeted beneath his blue gaze.

  But she wasn’t naïve enough to believe he felt either remorse or guilt for the way he’d been treating her. Oh no—not the man who used her slippers for blackmail.

  Then he stood. “If you’ll excuse me. I’ll be gone only a moment.”

  Miranda bit back the urge to tell him that there was no need to hurry back and returned her attention to the performers.

  A new group had moved into the alley. A man dressed all in black and a woman in a red feather-covered gown stood atop a small wagon pulled by a team of donkeys. With them on the wagon was a large wooden box and a small table.

  Catching the audience’s attention, the man performed a variety of magic tricks at the table with the assistance of the woman in red, including making a gold sovereign magically appear inside an unpeeled orange and pulling a dove from a hat that he released to fly over the crowd and disappear into the night. With each increasingly difficult trick, the audience cheered, and Miranda applauded right along with them. She knew the tricks were nothing but illusion and sleight of hand, yet she watched enthralled. Perhaps the night might still prove magical after all.

  Mesmerized by the final trick, she sat at the edge of her seat and leaned forward against the railing to watch as the man prepared to place the woman inside the box and make her vanish.

  “Stay away from magicians,” a deep voice warned at her ear. Which could only have been Sebastian, so she scowled, refusing to take her gaze away from the illusionist. He’d returned far faster than she’d hoped. “They should
be avoided at all costs.”

  “Why?” She rolled her eyes and braced herself for another one of his orders to behave herself.

  “Because they’re the worst kind of scoundrels and cads,” he murmured gently.

  Surprised by that, she turned to look at him. He reached up toward her hair, the strawberry-blond strands pulled into a simple knot tonight, and tugged gently at one of the loose tendrils curling down to frame her face. When he lowered his hand, a small paper rose dropped magically into his fingers.

  Her lips parted, speechless, at his magic trick.

  “You are right, Miranda. I had no business ruining your evening tonight or your night at the opera.” His blue eyes held hers in private communication as he presented the rose to her. “I fear that I behaved no better than a magician. My sincerest apologies.”

  Her heart tugged as she looked down at the red papier-mâché flower cupped in his palm. She might never understand this man, but she couldn’t stay angry at him, either, not when he apologized like this. Her fingers trembled as she accepted the flower.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  His eyes stared softly into hers. “You’re welcome.” After a short pause, he added, as if unable to help himself, “But do stay away from the tightropes, will you?”

  She laughed and pressed the flower against her chest, her eyes tearing up at his apology. “I will, I promise.”

  Of all the things for him to do tonight, she certainly hadn’t expected this! A flower as a peace offering. And most of all, an apology. Her chest lightened with relief. Now, they could be friends again, as they were meant to be, and he wouldn’t give what happened between them at the opera a second thought.

  As if to prove her correct, Sebastian turned his attention immediately back to Lady Jane, who had tapped his shoulder to inquire about one of the other members of Parliament in attendance tonight. Jane smiled at him, that demure expression that came so easily for her. So urbane and beautiful. Even just sitting there, in her pale gray gown and white ermine stole, with strings of pearls woven through her dark hair, she was quietly graceful and refined. Exactly the sort of woman Sebastian wanted for his wife.